Aphrodisias March 2011 4370.jpg

The Sebasteion. From a notice on site: The Sebasteion was a religious sanctuary dedicated to the worship of the Roman emperors as gods – a widespread practice in the Greek-speaking parts of the Roman empire. The main components of the sanctuary were a temple and a long courtyard. The courtyard was flanked by triple-storied portico-like buildings. The spaces between te columns of the second and third stories of these buildings were willed with life-size relief sculptures. During excavation in the late 1970s more than 70 of the original 190 of these reliefs were found lying where they had fallen when the buildings collapsed.

And Wikipedia: [Sebasteion] or Augusteum, was jointly dedicated, according to a 1st century inscription on its propylon, "To Aphrodite, the Divine Augusti and the People". A relief found in the ruins of the south portico represented a personification of the polis making sacrifice to the cult image of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias, venerated as promētōr, "foremother" or "ancestral mother". "Aphrodite represents the cosmic force that integrates imperial power with the power of local elites," a reader of Chariton romance has noted. This connection between the goddess and the imperial house was also a particularly politic one at the time, as the Gens Julia - the family of Julius Caesar, Octavian Augustus, and their immediate successors - claimed divine descent from Venus/Aphrodite.

On the building copies of the sculptures that once adorned it are shown (I took some pictures), for the originals visit the museum, see my museum gallery.